ICGN response to a public consultation in the Netherlands on a draft bill regarding the introduction of a response time of a maximum of 250 days that can be invoked by the executive board of a Dutch listed company. 

It is clear that the Commission gave considerable, and fresh, thinking to the amended Kodex, and we applaud the spirit of starting with principles and building a more concise code that is relevant for German companies and reflects international corporate governance standards. However our submission outlines some of out potential concerns and possible recommendations to alleviate these concerns. 

We are pleased to respond to the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) consultation Paper “Review of the TSE Cash Equity Market Structure”.   As one of the world’s leading equity markets, with over 30% of TSE owned by overseas investors, Japan is important to ICGN members. Accordingly, ICGN is actively involved in the dialogue regarding corporate governance and investor stewardship in Japan. 

The winners of the first Global Stewardship Awards, recognising excellence and innovation in investor stewardship were announced at a ceremony in London on 4th December. 

ICGN is pleased to launch our 2018 Yearbook - filled with a range of articles produced by influential figures from around the globe. Including: Angel Gurría, Trevor Philips, Deepa Raval, Rients Abma, Vaness Knapp, Alice Mathew, Nandini Sukumar, Barbara Novick, Hiro Mizuno, Lynne Paine, Joseph Bower, Sarah Wilson and more. Please note, the Yearbook is exclusive to ICGN Members. 

In many areas, investors and stock exchanges are aligned in their views about promoting the health of financial markets, the protection of investors and the corporate governance of listed companies but there are also potential areas of disconnect. This Viewpoint will assess how stock exchanges influence corporate governance and examine possible conflicts of interest and the overall governance of stock exchanges. 

ICGN is pleased to present our Policy Priorities for 2019. These complement our core policy documents — the ICGN Global Governance Principles and Global Stewardship Principles. These policy priorities seek to establish an overarching frame of reference to guide ICGN policy work and policy committees. 

ICGN and PRI are pleased to release a joint paper covering the investor agenda for corporate ESG reporting. A group of leading global investor organisations convened to address open questions relating to corporate ESG reporting to provide guidance and an investor perspective to the Corporate Reporting Dialogue and its members.  This Paper presents the preliminary outputs from the group on a range of ESG reporting issues, identifying points of consensus and division. 

It has come to our attention that the Belgian government intends to introduce in the Belgian parliament new legislation allowing listed companies to adopt double voting rights through loyalty shares. We believe that this is a seriously flawed tactic with unintended consequences, and discourage legislative initiatives to introduce loyalty shares in Belgium.

This Viewpoint explores all aspects of the anti-competitive debate linked to Common Ownership - exploring the potential problem, implications of the debate, institutional practice and evidence. ICGN believes that this challenge to common ownership is ill-founded, and lacking in both an understanding of institutional investment practice and clear evidence - read to explore why.

ICGN is pleased to release our latest Viewpoint - Human Capital Management (HMC):  Why investors should care and what they should look for in corporate disclosure. This Viewpoint delves into why HCM is important; the need for disclosure; the role of the board in HCM and how investors should assess with HCM disclosures by companies. 

In June, ICGN Members approved new Guidance drafted by the ICGN Shareholder Responsibilities Committee to extend fiduciary duties beyond ‘care’ and ‘loyalty’ to address the impact of systemic risk, time horizons and governance as part of stewardship obligations.

Investec Asset Management is the latest ICGN Member to publicly endorse our Global Stewardship Principles. Over 40 investors from around the world are listed on the ICGN website to signify join standards of stewardship policies and practices.